Free Dark Sun: Prism Pentad 1 - The Verdent Passage by Troy Denning

only to those intimidated by them.
    “Isn't it?” the noble countered. “I thought that was why people resorted to magic.”
    “It's harder than it looks,” Tithian replied crossly. “Besides, I tried. The amulets are
     protected by psionic shields and counterspells. I have people trying to break the
     safeguards, but if they fail, the only way to find the amulets may be to tear the ziggurat
     down, brick by brick.”
    “But you said the amulets were just annoyances?”
    The high templar seemed about to speak, then let the topic drop.
    Since he had no other suggestions to offer, Agis remained silent, trying to puzzle out why
     Tithian had picked this afternoon to come visiting. If his guest had been any other
     friend, the noble would have assumed that the visitor had simply come in search of a
     sympathetic ear. The high templar, however, was a solitary person who never shared his
     troubles or his joys with his friends. "Tithian was telling him all this, Agis suspected
     there was a reason.
    “If you want me to do something about the amulets, you'll really have to tell me a little
     about them,” Agis said last, deciding to press for all the information he could.
    “You?” Tithian asked. “What can you do?”
    “Isn't that why you're here?” Agis asked. “I assume you've come to discuss asking the
     Senate to support an initiative against the Veiled Alliance.”
    The high templar laughed. “What makes you think Kalak cares about the Senate's support?”
    Tithian's reply touched a sore nerve. The Senate of Lords was an assembly of noble
     advisors who were supposed to have the authority to override the king's decrees. In
     reality, the body was little more than a paper assembly, for senators who opposed the king
     invariably suffered prompt and mysterious deaths.
    “Perhaps the king should start caring about the Senate's support,” Agis said, speaking
     more openly in front of his old friend than he would have to any other templar. “He's
     nearly taxed the nobles into ruin building his ziggurat, and he still hasn't bothered to
     tell the Senate why he's erecting it in the first place!”
    The high templar looked away and waved his carafe toward the center of Agis's estate. “May
     we go back to your house? I'm not accustomed to standing about in the sun.” Without
     waiting for an answer, he began walking with a slow, even pace.
    Agis followed, continuing to press. “The caravan captains claim the Dragon is coming
     toward Tyr, and the king is ignoring our pleas to raise an army.”
    “Don't tell me you accept all that nonsense about the Dragon, Agis?”
    The Dragon was the terror of all travelers, a horrid monster of the desert that routinely
     wiped out whole caravans. Until recently, Agis had believed it was no more than a myth,
     dismissing tales of the thing devouring whole armies and laying waste to entire cities as
     fanciful fabrications. He had changed his mind during the last month, however, when sober
     and trustworthy men had begun to report glimpses of it at ever-decreasing distances from
     Tyr.
    Agis replied, “I think the king would be well advised to take the threat seriously. He
     should stop wasting his money and manpower on the ziggurat and start preparing for the
     defence of our estates and his city.”
    “If he believed in the Dragon, I'm sure he would,” Tithian replied.
    They crested the gentle hill that hid the reservoir from the rest of
    
    
    
    
    
     Agis's estate. Below them stretched green acres of tall faro, the dwarf cactus-tree grown
     as a cash crop by many of Tyr's nobles. The faro itself was almost as tall as a man and
     had a handful of scaly stems that rose to a tangled crown of needle-covered boughs. The
     fields were crisscrossed at regular intervals by a network of muddy irrigation ditches. In
     the center of the farm sat the ancestral Asticles mansion, its marble dome echoing the
     shape of the distant mountains that ringed